This application claims the priority of German Application No. 102 21 733.5 filed May 16, 2002, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a loading and unloading station for load carriers of vehicle bodies, vehicles and the like which can be transported in a railway car and supplied from there in several successive workstations to a production facility.
Loading and unloading stations for goods that need to be removed from means of transport are usually associated with the problems that on one hand goods cannot be supplied continuously to a destination and on the other hand a prop rack or the like that holds the goods cannot be reintroduced into a cycle back to the means of transport and that, therefore, the goods that are to be transported and the empty transport racks cannot be guaranteed to pass through promptly.
It is an object of the invention to create a loading and unloading station for vehicle bodies or vehicles which allows in a simple manner to supply vehicle bodies or vehicles continuously to an assembly line or the like and consequently ensure the removal of empty carriers for the bodies or vehicles.
This object is achieved pursuant to the invention by providing a loading and unloading station for load carriers of vehicle bodies, vehicles or the like, which can be transported in a railway car and supplied from there in several successive workstations to a production facility, wherein load units containing vehicle bodies can be conveyed from the railway car to a production facility after passing through a plurality of workstations; and wherein the vehicle bodies can be unloaded and subsequently the empty load units or load carriers are returned in a cycle to the railway car via further workstations.
Important benefits achieved with the invention largely consist of the fact that in successive workstations from unloading vehicle bodies or vehicles from a railway car to feeding the vehicle bodies or vehicles to an assembly line or the like and the removal and reloading of several load carriers for vehicle bodies or vehicles into the unloaded railway cars a continuous, coordinated unloading process for the bodies or vehicles and a simultaneous loading process of the empty body carriers into the railway cars is guaranteed.
This is achieved in particular preferred embodiments of the invention by unloading a load unit with two vehicle bodies that are aligned on load carriers in the longitudinal direction of the railway car by means of a loading and unloading system of a loading cart that can be displaced parallel to the railway car in the direction of the arrow. The load carrier is then transported on a rotary table, which is arranged parallel to the loading cart and can be displaced transversely thereto. The longitudinally aligned load unit can be fed from there to a chain conveying device that is arranged transversely thereto. Said device then separates the load unit into load carriers that are arranged behind one another by means of a destacking device, removes the vehicle body and places it onto a rack by means of a device and then supplies it to a removal device of the production facility. This process for feeding the vehicle bodies to the production facility or the like and removing the load carrier takes place automatically, and the processes in the work stations are coordinated such that unloading can be followed by a loading process.
All processes are controlled accordingly by a control system in particular preferred embodiments of the invention so that the sequences for taking over the load carriers can be coordinated with each other in the individual workstations and a continuous flow of the vehicle bodies to the production facility and the like can take place.
Passing of nine individual successive workstations of the loading and unloading stations in particular preferred embodiments of the invention beneficially occurs pursuant to the invention such that in the first workstation the load unit is unloaded through the loading cart by means of an integrated lifting and transport device. In the second workstation, the load unit can be supplied via chain conveyors of the loading cart to a moving rotary table with a chain conveyor, from which the load unit is forwarded in the third workstation via the chain conveyors to another chain conveyor, which is offset by 90°, of a transport belt. In the fourth workstation, the load unit is separated into the individual load carriers by the portal lifting device, which is designed as a stacking device. After that, in the fifth workstation, the vehicle bodies are lifted off the load carrier, respectively, and they are combined in a stacking device, resting on top of each other, into a four-unit stack in the cycle of the next workstation. In the seventh workstation they can be fed to a stationary rotary table. In the eighth workstation the four-unit stack can be placed from the rotary table onto the loading cart and can be moved from there into an empty railway car in the ninth workstation.
After the load carrier or the load unit passes at least five workstations, the vehicle body can be supplied to a production facility or the like. Subsequent to these workstations, the empty load carrier can then be transported further and returns to the railway car, from which the vehicle bodies have been removed, after at least four additional workstations. This successive passing of the workstations enables a rapid sequence of continuously supplying vehicle bodies and removing empty load carriers into the railway car.
Based on the invented use of so-called rotary tables, a simplified, exact repositioning of the load unit with the vehicle bodies from a transverse direction into a longitudinal direction and vice versa is possible. For this purpose, the loading cart can be displaced on tracks parallel to the railway car, and on one hand in a first working position in accordance with a transfer position for the load unit and on the other hand in the eighth working position in accordance with another transfer position it is possible to move a four-unit stack from a stationary, pivoting rotary table in a cycle back into the first transfer position for storing the four-unit stack in an empty railway car. The rotary tables are each equipped with so-called chain conveyors so that it is possible to transfer the load unit or the load carrier to the forwarding chain conveyors of the device in a simple manner.
To facilitate loading and unloading of the railway car into the loading cart or from the loading cart in particular preferred embodiments of the invention, it contains two spaced lifting forks between which chain conveyors for the load unit or for the bottom load carrier are arranged. In the first working position, the lifting forks engage front seats of the transverse carriers from beneath for transport and lifting purposes. In the first workstation, the load unit in particular can be placed onto the chain conveyors of the loading cart, and in the second working position it can be displaced on the rotary table, which is arranged parallel and aligned with the loading cart, onto the subsequent chain conveyors of the rotary table. The rotary table can be displaced especially at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the loading cart, wherein the load unit can be rotated about a right angle through a rotary rack of the rotary table such that the vehicle bodies placed on top point with their front vehicle ends opposite the moving direction of the rotary table. Rotation of the load unit with the vehicle bodies is necessary to be able to feed them to the assembly line in the desired alignment.
A transport section on chain conveyors, which connects to the load unit at a right angle and on which the load unit can be displaced by the rotary table autonomously, is provided for conveying the load unit away from the rotary table in particular preferred embodiments of the invention.
To be able to separate the load carriers that are arranged on top of each other, a so-called portal stacking device is equipped for example with telescoping as well as lifting and lowering forks, which separate the load unit into load carriers in the fourth working position in particular preferred embodiments of the invention.
For this the upper load carrier is initially lifted, and the exposed lower load carrier is forwarded in particular preferred embodiments of the invention. The upper load carrier is subsequently lowered, and the vehicle body is placed onto a receiving rack. The load carriers have now been easily separated so that the vehicle bodies can be removed and be placed onto a rack, from where they are forwarded by a device.
The load carriers, which are released now, are rolled onto a transport section, which runs parallel to the loading cart. In the sixth workstation the load carriers are fed to a stacking device, which performs a stacking process by means of a lifting device of four load carriers into a four-unit stack in such a manner that the respectively lowest load carrier can be lifted and the remaining load carriers can be moved underneath. The individual load carriers contain upwardly protruding stanchions and/or props on each side, which support the uppermost load carrier of a load unit when being stacked on top of each other. Before stacking the load carriers into a four-unit stack, these upwardly protruding stanchions and/or props are retracted beforehand by means of a device.
The four-unit stack, which is arranged parallel to the loading cart, is transferred from the turned rotary table into the loading cart, wherein in the eighth working station the four-unit stack can be lifted by the loading and unloading device of the loading cart and can be placed into the railway car from which the load unit has been removed by the chain conveyors in the ninth working position.
The empty railway car is then supplied successively with the load units consisting of a four-unit stack so that hereby the cycle from removing the vehicle bodies onto the load carriers to loading the load units is completed.
A loading and unloading station for vehicles bodies or vehicles is shown in a diagrammatic view in the drawings, including the sequence of the workstations.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.